Camerounian law and literature: Judging attempts at oppositional narrative.

Abstract

While studies in law and literature represent an established (minor) field in Anglo-American literary and legal academia, their presence in other areas is less pronounced or even nonexistent. In the French tradition, for example, writers and theoreticians such as Barthes, Stendhal, Foucault, Genet, Derrida, and Duras, among many others, have dealt with legal issues and themes in some or even much of their work. There is, however, no distinct theoretical movement combining the legal and the literary in France. Similarly, across the African continent there are numerous authors who write novels about imprisonment (Ngu&huml;g <a><ac>i</ac><ac>&d11;</ac></a> , Samkange, Ijimere, Mukong, Bassomb, etc.) or the law in general (Achebe, Ousmane, Tuma, Tell, Ngandu Nkashama, Ouattara, etc.), and so-called traditional African law is the subject of innumerable studies and, in fact, serves as the primary source for the field of legal anthropology. And yet a combined study of law and literature is virtually nonexistent in this context as well, with rare examples such as Cohen's <italic>Burying SM</italic> and Lai's <italic> Trial of Balwant Rai and Others</italic> representing more law and anthropology or history than law and literature. Not surprisingly then, there has not yet been an attempt to make an application of the principles of law and literature within the context of francophone Africa. This dissertation makes such an application by examining the potential uses of oppositional narrative within the (post)colonial African legal systems located in the country of Cameroon. Investigating the effectiveness of literary and legal storytelling in officially bilingual and bi-judicial Cameroon, the dissertation argues that attempts at oppositionality are far more successful than traditional means of resistance, legal and otherwise, in disturbing and changing the dominant social discourse. Both fictional literary narratives and legal documents such as decisions and laws figure into this study of oppositional possibilities. In addition, the dissertation discusses in what ways it is important to distinguish and specifically employ oppositional <italic>legal </italic> narrative as opposed to the normal tactics of oppositional narrative when encountering legal discourse. The dissertation is supported by ten months of research and interviews conducted in Cameroon (1996--97).